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Architect Bjarke Ingels is transforming the Williamsburg waterfront

Architect Bjarke Ingels is transforming the Williamsburg waterfront

Images courtesy of BIG and Cymbal Development.

Feature from the Brooklyn Eagle blog community

By Palmer Hasty

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The stunning triangular viewing platform that rises out over the East River planned for Pier 6 at the Atlantic Avenue entrance to Brooklyn Bridge Park is not Bjarke Ingels’ first connection to Brooklyn.

Cymbal's visionary projects that combine residential structures with high end retail space completely transform and revitalize urban landscapes. He is becoming known as one of South Florida's top real estate developers. The City of Fort Lauderdale along with South Florida economic development groups believe Cymbal's Marina Lofts project will reawaken the Fort Lauderdale waterfront, attracting young professionals and new consumers to the area.

Cymbal chose the famous Danish architect Bjarke Ingels to design Marina Lofts. Ingels was named the "Innovator of the Year" by the Wall Street Journal in 2011.

Now Ingels has another high profile Brooklyn connection. Ingles will soon add his visionary, architectural footprint, if you will, to the Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6 in the form of a giant, triangular, wooden viewing platform in the shape of a Manta Ray slanting upward, slightly out over the East River. This will provide photographic views of New York Harbor, the lower Manhattan skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge and the rest of the park looking north along the transformed Brooklyn waterfront.

In a recent interview with the Brooklyn Eagle, Ingels, obviously inspired by the shape of the Manta Ray, said of his design: “The Manta Ray is a small public platform at the end of Pier 6- equally accessible above and below. The organic slopes and curves of its namesake have been shaped by concerns for accessibility, safety, shelter and structure - like a man-made reef evolved to accommodate human life.”

Back in August, Brooklyn Eagle reporter Lore Croghan said of the Pier 6 area of Brooklyn Bridge Park: “Its most dramatic feature is a triangular wood-covered platform that lifts off from a corner of the pier at the water's edge like a barely tethered magic carpet. At its high point, the platform rises 17-and-a-half feet, offering a vantage point to take in killer views of the Lower Manhattan skyline.”

The city approved the project in September of last year and Bijarke Ingels Group (BIG) expects the design commission to approve the project this month. BIG also told the Eagle that "half of the funding is already in place and we expect to reach the complete funding goal later this year."

Ingels’ first North American project, an apartment complex on West 57 Street across the river in Manhattan, simply called W57, is currently under construction.

You can also see a complete perspective of the Pier 6 architectural renderings of the platform by clicking the BBP icon at thebig.com.dk website.